The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP) commissioned the Aerospace Corporation (Aerospace) to conduct an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) study addressing future communication needs for the US Antarctica Program (USAP). The results of this study will inform decisions on USAP communication architectures and mission support capabilities for a planning horizon of 2015-2030. Part of this charter led to sponsoring a science workshop to help define the requirements baseline for future USAP communications needs. This document summarizes the material from this venue.

Three focus areas emerged from the workshop, 1) South Pole users, 2) distributed users, and 3) maritime users. South Pole users have the largest bulk data requirements. Distributed users include low power users, which are serviced by low Earth orbit (LEO) narrowband servicing systems like Iridium. Maritime users can have stressing requirements if the unconstrained future requirements are included as part of the baseline.

Many of the requirements can be accommodated within realizable communication offerings. Some of the demanding maritime requirements may drive the required architectures. Tables 33 through 37 represent the combined summary of requirements from the workshop inputs that were utilized in an Analysis of Alternative (AoA) analysis of the potential methods of meeting future United States Antarctica Program communication needs.

Conclusions and Recommedation

South Pole and distributed user requirements can be met via several communication systems or services. There is a desire to move towards real time data retrieval rather than store and forward or store and recovery once a season.

Maritime requirements include some challenging bulk data transfers and data rates. To meet these requirements will stress the system and may be cost drivers.

No single communication system can provide for all the communication needs. A mixed architecture between low rate distributed coverage and high data rate at specific locations can effectively meet most of the requirements.